


Date

by Niki



Series: Payback [2]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disabled Character, First Date, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/619892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It feels silly asking you out, but...” </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date

**Author's Note:**

> Direct sequel for the story I wrote for a ME kink meme [prompt](http://masseffectkink.livejournal.com/5736.html?thread=24439144). Thank you to everyone who asked for it!

“Shepard? Should have realised from the description it was you.”

“Bailey?” Shepard turns from watching Kaidan talk to the cops to face a blond man in a suit. He _would_ be the detective in charge.

“Long time no see,” the man says, and offers him a steady handshake. “Were you hunting for these guys, or how did you just _happen_ to be here when they attacked?”

“Hey, I'm just here to cash in my disability check,” Shepard says, using his cane to point at his leg.

“So they finally kicked you out, huh,” Bailey says, but there is compassion on his face.

Their relationship has always been interesting, from mutual hostility to grudging respect to something almost resembling friendship. Shepard hasn't seen him since his return, had almost forgotten he worked here.

“I just felt like pursuing new challenges, you know,” Shepard replies, keeping a straight face.

“Well, just as long as it isn't turning vigilante.”

“Hey, they started,” Shepard says.

“Uh huh.”

“They pulled a gun on...” The justification keeps getting thinner and thinner, but when Shepard's eyes automatically search for Kaidan's form, and the other man turns his head as if he can feel the gaze, and sends him a smile... Well, he knows he would never make a different choice.

“Oh, I see,” Bailey says. 

\- - -

When he is done giving his statement Shepard walks to Kaidan, who has been standing by the door, waiting. Waiting for him.

“May I walk you home?” Shepard asks, smiling.

“You may,” Kaidan replies with his own smile.

They walk in silence, Kaidan keeping pace with his limp.

“It feels silly asking you out, but...” 

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“I have a day off tomorrow,” Kaidan says. “I usually don't take Wednesday because...” he glances at Shepard from the corner of his eye. “One week, you...”

“The check was late,” Shepard says, and his insides are doing a Snoopy dance. 

“But a co-worker needed to change her shift to get to his son's dance recital and no one else could and... anyway. I have a day off.”

“Lunch?”

“I'd love to. Do you know Apollo's Cafe?” 

“Yeah.”

It's awkward. And yet... it's not. The silence doesn't bother him, and it doesn't seem to bother Kaidan either. Shepard is content to just walk by him, knowing he will have a chance to get to know him better, knowing it doesn't end when they reach his home.

He doesn't live far, and Shepard realises the reason he suggested Apollo's must be because it's just round the corner from there.

“Well, this is it,” Kaidan says, and turns to face him at the door. “John... you saved my life today...” 

“No.” He pulls back, panicked, shaking his head. “No, no, no. Not because you feel you owe me a debt of gratitude or something.”

“John... You have been the brightest part of my weeks for months, this has nothing to do with gratitude.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Okay. He grins. 

“I know we don't actually know anything about each other...” Kaidan says.

“I know you are handsome,” Shepard says. “I know you are sexy, and I know your smile makes me feel human again. Now I want to learn everything else.”

“Okay,” Kaidan says, too. His smile is... it's everything, especially now that Shepard knows it really is all for him.

He leans in for a kiss, nothing like the adrenaline-fuelled affair at the bank, just s light peck on his lips, and Kaidan's lips mould to his, and damn he wants to invite himself in, but knows it's too soon, and his leg hurts so much he really needs his meds about an hour ago, thanks.

“Tomorrow,” he says, smiling.

“Tomorrow.”

As soon as he sees the door close behind the other man, he hails a cab. 

\- - -

Shepard sleeps for twelve hours because of the extra painkiller but at least it saves him from having to fret. He has a date with Kaidan. He has a _date_ with Kaidan. 

What the hell is he going to wear?

It's jeans, again, a clean t-shirt, and the leather jacket. He hopes the other man doesn't think he didn't think him worth the effort. But he doesn't want to stress his leg by going clothes shopping just before meeting Kaidan. 

He takes a cab to Apollo's, hoping he is saving his leg for something, later. Even if it just walking Kaidan to his door. 

He's early.

“Well, well, well,” says a a voice that sounds like someone spent decades drinking whiskey and smoking a few packs of cigarettes every day, and when Shepard turns, he realises that's exactly what she's done. “Hello, Shepard.”

“Hey, Liara's other-mom.”

“Heard you were back from the wars,” the woman says, leaning on the bar.

“Something like that. How's Liara these days?” They were friendly enough in high school that he'd met her family on occasion. He had been one of the few people who didn't give a damn that she had two mothers, and she didn't care that he was in a foster home, so they liked spending time together.

“Off on some dig again. We... lost touch for a while.”

Which was a nice way of saying that her partner left her because of the said whiskey, and took their daughter with her. Nice to hear that wasn't the case anymore, that at least she was in touch with her daughter.

“So she did become an archaeologist then? She used to tell me so much about ancient civilisations I actually learnt something.”

“The girl had such a crush on you back in the day,” she says, smiling indulgently. “I told her you batted for our team, though, but she wouldn't believe me.”

Shepard blushes. Had he been that obvious? He couldn't have been, he would never had made Commander if he had.

“Your date's here,” she says, nodding towards a table to the side.

“How do you...”

“I'm a bartender, we're supposed to know these things. Go, have fun.”

“Thanks, I will. Tell Liara hi when you talk to her.”

Kaidan. He looks nice, as always, and it's weird seeing him in something else than a suit. He's wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt, and the smile that grows on his face when he sees Shepard is enough to make his pulse speed up. Damn, he's gorgeous. 

“Hi,” he says, intelligently. 

“Hi,” Kaidan replies.

“What are you drinking?” he asks, sitting down.

“Beer,” Kaidan replies, just as Liara's mother arrives, holding a tray with drinks. What was her name again? Athena or something?

“You look like a lager person,” she says, setting up a pint in front of Kaidan. “And I think you have moved on from coke as well.”

Shepard eyes his drink suspiciously, but it's just beer. He wouldn't know his lager from horse piss but beer is beer.

“I used to go to high school with her daughter,” he explains when she has left, leaving them to sip their drinks. It's funny, now that the has met Kaidan, officially, the city that felt so empty just a few days ago seems filled with people he used to know.

That leads them to talk about schools, studies, family... the usual “where I am from” date discussion. 

“My dad worked in that bank for his whole career. He's retired now, my parents live on an orchard my mom's family left them.”

“I never knew mine,” Shepard says. “I grew up in foster homes, then ended up in the streets as a teenager. I met Bailey back then... he was still a beat cop, I was in a gang. I don't know which one of us was happier when I turned 18 and could enlist. A soldier is all I've ever been. I have to admit that I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life now that I can't be one anymore.”

Maybe it's too much too soon, but he needs Kaidan to be aware of what he's getting into. Because the more he learns of him, the more he wants to spend time with him. Hell, he already knows that whatever he ends up doing with the rest of his life, he wants to do it with this man. It should be scary, it should be way too soon, but that's just how it is.

Before they realise they have finished their steak sandwiches and are lingering over their drinks. They have actually sat there for hours, and Shepard tries to stretch his leg surreptitiously under the table. Kaidan notices. 

“We can go,” he suggests, and while Shepard isn't ready to let him go yet, he has to get up when the other man does.

They walk leisurely towards Kaidan's place, continuing their discussion, and when they reach his door, he opens it mid-sentence, and, casually, invites Shepard in.

His apartment is nice, cosy, and they are met on the door by a black and white cat. 

“Ah, this is Bullet,” Kaidan says, and Shepard turns to look at him incredulously.

“Bullet? You named your cat 'Bullet?'”

“Look.” He picks up a toy from the floor throws it over the room, and the cat is on it in a fraction of a second. “It was that or 'Charge.'”

“Good choice.”

“Would you like a drink? Coffee?”

“No, thanks,” Shepard says, looking around. “I like your home. It's very... homey.”

“Thanks,” Kaidan says, smiling, and seems to understand Shepard actually meant that as a compliment.

It's still not awkward but there is tension now that wasn't present in the public café. Shepard wants to kiss Kaidan so badly, to take him in his arms as he had back at the bank, wants to feel his body against his – a body that seems much more muscular than he'd ever have expected under all those suits – but he also needs to be sure that the other man knows this is about more than just that.

He needs to know he's more to Kaidan than just that.

“Look... I know I'm no prize,” Shepard starts. “I'm a broken old soldier who has very little to show for all his years in the army, at least very little that has any bearing in civilian life. You of all people know my worth exactly,” he says, wryly.

“I do,” Kaidan says, seriously.

“I meant my bank balance.”

“I know. I didn't. What you did yesterday...”

“The only thing I'm good at, the only thing I'm good _for_ : killing people.”

“That's not what you were doing.”

“No?”

“No. You were protecting people. Protecting _me_. Have you any idea how...” He blushes, but goes on. “How attractive that is?”

Shepard doesn't, not really. Fighting is a skill he has, killing is an unfortunate side-effect. But protecting this man? That's just one of life's constants. Like breathing.

“How... hot that is?” And now Kaidan is standing right in front of him, and to hell with everything else when this man is looking at him with that expression in his eyes. 

They are almost the same height, so it's easy to just lean forward a bit, to claim those lips again in a kiss easily as desperate as the one in the bank. He puts all his longing in it, all the lonely months he could only admire his smile over a desk, all the dreams and all the hopes, and Kaidan is right there with him, meeting his tongue, his desperation, his longing with his own.

And then those hands are on him, those wonderful long fingers finding his skin under the t-shirt, running over his sides and he's trembling from the sensations because it has been so long, and it's _Kaidan_ , and...

He hasn't slept with anyone after the explosion that made him a cripple, wasn't even sure if he still could until he met Kaidan and his libido woke up, and even now he isn't sure of the mechanics, what he can do, and... is it too fast? 

It's like Kaidan can hear the thought, or maybe he freezes, because he pulls back from the kiss and for a second Shepard can only stare at him, his eyes dark, with the pupils so wide there is very little brown showing, his mouth shining and swollen, lips parted as he tries to catch his breath, his cheeks reddened and Shepard wants to kiss him again so badly it's insane.

“I... I don't do this, ever, with anyone,” Kaidan says, quietly. “But...” He swallows. “Stay?”

“Until you kick me out,” Shepard says, and it's a vow, a promise, much more than just a night, and the way Kaidan smiles, he knows it too. 

\- - - 

Shepard still goes to the bank every Tuesday to deposit his check. Even though the letter arrives at a different address these days. Even though he saw Kaidan at breakfast. Even though the manager never fails to shake his hand when he shows up. Despite all that, it's a ritual he's not willing to give up. And Kaidan always asks for his ID and smiles that sweet wide smile that is just for him.


End file.
